Arthro-Pod EP 114: For the Love of Aphids with Kait Chapman

While traveling to a conference in Salt Lake City, UT from Nebraska, Jody realizes that she doesn't know much about her colleague, Kait Chapman. To her surprise and glee, they get into talking about Kait's MS/PhD research which is all about the fabulous insect-plant interactions involved in the relationship between aphids and their host plants. Take a listen to a discussion about animal-loving beginnings, telescoping generations, aphids on tiny bungee cords, host plant responses, and the love-hate relationship between a grad student and her subject insect.

In this closeup of a mama aphid, you can see her offspring inside of her. Those small dots are the eyes of the aphid she will birth. 

A side by side look at aphid tolerant (L) and aphid susceptible (R) varieties of soybeans

Aphids can create symptomatic damage like curled leaves, wilting, and copious amounts of honeydew.

This cabbage aphid is coated in a white wax material. You can also see it is exuding an alarm pheromone (the yellow colored droplet)

Aphids are also quite small, though they add up when in big groups!

This aphid is wired and ready for EPG

Questions? Comments? 

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This episode is freely available on archive.org and is licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Beginning/ending theme: "There It Is" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Arthro-Pod EP 113: Why do people want kill praying mantises?

The Arthro-Pod gang have had a weird influx of questions from people about how they can best kill Chinese mantises. There has been a lot of concern regarding how they might be invasive and their effects on native species. Join us as we dive in to a complicated topic of parsing through native, non-native, and invasive species and highlight the biology of mantises plus the ways they normally capture our attention. With Chinese mantis, why the hate? What part might anti-Asian sentiment play in the attempts to control them? All that and more in episode 113!

An adult Chinese mantis, wondering what the heck we're talking about

Photo by Whitney Cranshaw, Colorado State

Show notes:

Here are some articles highlighting the controversy

https://www.brandywine.org/conservancy/blog/invasive-mantis-species 

https://www.insidescience.org/news/lessons-about-love-and-invasion-americas-foreign-mantises

Questions? Comments? 

Follow the show on Twitter @Arthro_Podshow

Follow the hosts on Twitter @bugmanjon, @JodyBugsmeUNL, and @MSkvarla36

Get the show through Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcatching app!

If you can spare a moment, we appreciate when you subscribe to the show on those apps or when you take time to leave a review!

Subscribe to our feed on Feedburner!  

This episode is freely available on archive.org and is licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Beginning/ending theme: "There It Is" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0